Culture, Community, Curriculum: How Institutional Contexts Matter for Black Collegians

• In Event: Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 16. Lifecourse Mobility

Abstract

While earning a college degree has long been the traditional path to achieve upward mobility, numerous reports show the American public is losing confidence in higher education as a pathway to success. Despite current challenges in the higher education landscape, including the reversal of race-conscious college admissions, elimination of diversity initiatives, and marginalization of Black topics from curricula, recent trends show steady undergraduate enrollment growth among Black students. Patterns in college-going suggest that the goals of higher education remain valuable to Black folk. However, the impacts of social and political forces on shifts in Black college attendance have rarely appeared in scholarly conversations. Using in-depth interviews with 40 undergraduates at Ebony Tower (a private historically black institution) and Ivory Tower (a public flagship institution), this study explores the perspectives of Black collegians on the value of higher education in the current sociopolitical climate. Preliminary findings reveal that the cultural, communal, and curricular dimensions of campus life shape meanings ascribed to success, mobility, long-term aspirations. At Ebony, students contend that the symbolic representations of Blackness etched into history and fabric of the institution, diverse peer subcultures (e.g., anime nerds, fashion community, revolutionaries), and faculty expectations for success (e.g., high academic standards, research opportunities, nurturing relationships) allow them to construct a flexible Black identity while preparing them to navigate the social world as emerging professionals. Meanwhile, Ivory students often rely on the institutional reputation and prestige, black-affinity social and professional organizations, and traversing mixed messages about academic expectations to envision the value of their degree on future workplace opportunities. The ritual of college-going is variegated across college contexts, even for Black students with similar social and cultural origins in different institutional types, and has implications for perceptions of and expectations for one’s sense of self, academic performance, and future opportunities.

Author

• Sagen Y Kidane, Brown University